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    1. Energy Efficiency

    Generac Grid platform handling Distributed Energy Resource Management on Dominion Virginia system

    Aug. 30, 2022
    Those DERs include behind and front-of-meter resources such as rooftop and community solar, energy storage, smart thermostats, electric vehicle charging and other capacity resources.
    Image credit Dominion Energy Virginia
    Dominin Renewables 630e50fdbfa12

    The grid services subsidiary of on-site power equipment firm Generac has been chosen to handle distributed energy resource management (DERMS) for Dominion Energy Virginia's renewables generation mix.

    Generac Grid Services will provide its Concerto platform to control distributed energy resources and maintain reliability on the Dominion grid. Those DERs include behind and front-of-meter resources such as rooftop and community solar, energy storage, smart thermostats, electric vehicle charging and other capacity resources.

    Order 2222 from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which paves the way for distributed energy resources to complete on the electricity markets, compels more utilities to gain greater vision into the renewables and on-site power resources such as microgrids installed within their service territories.

    "Concerto will allow us to monitor, control, and optimize increasing levels of DERs on our system to maintain the safe and reliable grid that our customers expect," said Robbie Wright, vice president -Grid & Technical Solutions, Dominion Energy. "This is a key component of our efforts to modernize the electric grid, and we're looking forward to its implementation."

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    Dominion also will coordinate the Generac Grid Concerto system with its own advanced distribution management system. The Virginia utility’s grid is connected into the PJM Interconnection.

    "Generac Grid Services is pleased to support Dominion Energy with this important project," said James Carr, president of Generac Grid Services. "This is a landmark, enterprise-level DERMS deployment that will aggregate many different types of DERs, integrate to utility systems and be used for both simple and advanced distribution optimization use cases."

    The Concerto platform will help balance supply and demand from the intermittent renewables and also provide real-time voltage support.

    Generac has been expanding its energy management portfolio in recent years as the macro grid grows in complexity and variety of resources. One of its bigger moves involved the acquisition of Enbala Power Networks announced  in 2020.

    Earlier this year, Dominion Energy Virginia announced it was soliciting proposals for acquiring up to 1.2 GW of new solar and onshore wind power as well as approximately 125 MW of energy storage.

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    (Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]).

    Follow us on Twitter @EnergyTechNews_ and @rodwaltonelp and look us up on LinkedIn

    About the Author

    Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor | Senior Editor

    For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

    Rod Walton has spent 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

    He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

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